OT, but if you don't mind me asking, Stubby, how do you disagree with Anita about the Friends line? alot of her more general criticisms rang true for me, especially the way that LEGO has increasingly focused on violent themes in its play sets and advertisements. aside, I really feel like stock LEGO sets were at their best when they had less violent themes. We don't need TLG to make weapons for us when we already do that so much better ourselves.

There was a long thread about it earlier, but it was before the big forum update so it's not indexed in the search and I can't track it down easily.

If I remember right my biggest objection was to the accusation that the "boy's" lines give all kinds of opportunities for imaginative and constructive play, while the "girl's" Friends sets limited the kids to narrowly-defined stereotypical gender roles and no imaginative or constructive play.

I thought that was bullshit. Boys get cops and robbers, or Batman, or ninjago versus skeletons; there's nothing constructive about them at all, and talk about narrowly-defined roles! Meanwhile the girls sets get a doctor running her own veterinary hospital, a girl with a robotics laboratory, another one with a design studio, another one rescuing animals in her own ATV, etc. etc. The Friends' roles are way, way more open-ended and constructive and non-gender-specific than the characters in the boys' sets, but everybody's up in arms about how sexist they are because Lego made some of the bricks pink. If anything, we should be holding the designs of the Friends sets up as the standard to raise the boys' sets to.

Zupponn wrote:WHO WANTS TO SAY THAT THE FRIENDS LINE IS NOT AWESOME!?!?!?!?

WHO?!?

Was that made entirely with Friends sets?

I had a quick look through the Friends catalog and one of the things that struck me was that the sets didn't seem as re-buildable as the boys' sets did. As in, the pieces that form most of your average MOCer's 'tool box' were in shorter supply in those sets than in the product lines marketed to boys. Of course, really good builders can get around this, but it takes years to get to that level of skill and you may just not be able to build the things you really want to.

stubby wrote: Boys get cops and robbers, or Batman, or ninjago versus skeletons; there's nothing constructive about them at all, and talk about narrowly-defined roles! Meanwhile the girls sets get a doctor running her own veterinary hospital, a girl with a robotics laboratory, another one with a design studio, another one rescuing animals in her own ATV, etc. etc. The Friends' roles are way, way more open-ended and constructive and non-gender-specific than the characters in the boys' sets, but everybody's up in arms about how sexist they are because Lego made some of the bricks pink. If anything, we should be holding the designs of the Friends sets up as the standard to raise the boys' sets to.

This seemed to me to be the exact thing Anita was complaining about -- it's not so much that the girls' sets are all about cooking and cleaning and whatever, but that LEGO used to sell the same themes to girls and boys, and now it's two different product lines marketed to different genders, with several boys' product lines and one token girls' product line. Which is another problem I have with Friends; regardless of its content, it's clearly marketed as 'for girls' instead of being a return to LEGO's more open-ended, constructive, non-violent roots. Even if the Friends sets are as good as the stuff marketed to boys, they're still fundamentally separate-but-equal.

The Friends sets have a lot of playability thanks to all their details and accessories, something that younger kids love, but which is often overlooked by BrikWarriors and other older kids. All the ninjas and knights and spacemen and crap only have one purpose; kill each other. When I was a younger kid I always built cities. Or I tried at least, because I had so few buildings. Would have been great to have some of those Friends sets.

Then as I got older I started getting into violence, found BrikWars, built armies, and my heart grew cold and hard and I forgot how to play.

Remus: Harry... I'm a werewolf.
Harry: Are you fucking serious?
Remus: Well yes, but I don't see how that applies here.

Arkbrik wrote:Then as I got older I started getting into violence, found BrikWars, built armies, and my heart grew cold and hard and I forgot how to play.

That looks like some great text for the inside of a birthday card.

Front of card:A happy minifig guy with a party hattext: "I had a happy birthday, like you!"

Inside card:Picture: Conan minifig on throne of skullz, thinking.text: "Then as I got older I started getting into violence, found BrikWars, built armies, and my heart grew cold and hard and I forgot how to play"

Last edited by Tzan on Thu Oct 11, 2012 6:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Arkbrik wrote:...When I was a younger kid I always built cities. Or I tried at least, because I had so few buildings.

When I wasn't building sprawling bases or ships I too was building cities. The family (Immortals) would subtly, and sometimes not so subtly take over all the criminal goings on and before long end up owning the city. Dial'O'Death was born during that time selling guns to shady characters with plenty of money. Then the rebellious riots would start and end up in a blood bath of epic proportions with every toy I owned getting in on the act. Some of my best experiences of play have been war based, but then my head burns with War.